LuxRender v0.7 Final Release

[jeanphi]

Hi all,

We are pleased to release a new stable version of LuxRender. It will provide many enhancements compared to v0.6 but has behaviour changes or incompatibilities, so you need to make sure that you use a matching exporter. User visible changes are detailed in this thread. Thanks to all developpers for their great work, and to the many testers for their feedback.
We are now eager to integrate Dade's GPGPU work into LuxRender, however we'll try to provide a maintenance release before the end of the summer should you find compelling bugs with this release. We'll do our best to answer your questions in the forums or in the bug tracker.

Congratulations and many thanks to xray for the new splash screen.

Here are the download links for the release, they'll replace the ones on the official download page once they are all available:
Windows:
32 bits SSE2 installer (new GUI)
64 bits installer (new GUI)

32 bits SSE2 archive (new GUI)
64 bits archive (new GUI)

32 bits SSE1 archive (old GUI)
32 bits SSE2 archive (old GUI)
64 bits archive (old GUI)

MacOS:
Universal installer (MacOS 10.5 and above)

Linux:
32 bits SSE1 archive
32 bits SSE2 archive
64 bits SSE2 archive

Changes since v0.7RC3:
- bug fixes (mostly to reduce fireflies)
- photon mapping tweaks (to make it more robust, no behaviour change)

Other changes since v0.6.1:
- new Qt GUI
- new version of the QBVH accelerator
- new supersample option (default on) to the mitchell filter providing both sharp results and almost no ringing artifacts
- lots of improvements to the metropolis sampler
- improved bidirectional integrator
- more direct lighting sampling schemes available for the path integrator
- the previous glossy material has been renamed glossy_lossy and the new glossy material should give better results by having less energy loss
- environment lighting now has importance sampling options to improve convergence
- volumetric objects supporting absorption for glass through the new glass2 material and volume properties (more options should be available in upcoming versions)
- vastly enhanced brick texture
- new tabulated data texture to allow loading of spectral data from files (including PBRT2 spectrum files)
- upgraded image loading to use FreeImage which brings support for more file formats
- note that now passthrough materials like null or architectural glass count as a bounce in the integrator depth
- various speed enhancements
- lots of bug fixes
- improved instancing export in LuxBlend
- hair support from LuxBlend

---------------------------

Source Code

People who want to download the source code can download the v07 tag files of our HG source code repository here:
http://src.luxrender.net/lux/file/45f2ed7f09f7

And luxblend: http://src.luxrender.net/luxblend/file/017fc3edcc51

---------------------------

Cheers,

Jeanphi

[Lord Crc]

Windows builds based on the wx GUI will come later tonight for those who are eager to try it out. Qt will come slightly later, hopefully by Sunday. Sorry for the delay!

[jeanphi]

Hi,

Thanks Lord Crc, I hope I'll be able to update the links and site by then. I'm not yet sure I'll have an internet connection in the coming days, but those holydays are going to be welcome

Jeanphi

[Lord Crc]

Added archives of the old GUI. Installer will be Qt GUI only, and will come as soon as possible.

Oh and you've definitely earned that vacation jeanphi, so have fun and relax!

[supraserv]

On one of my interior scenes with metropolis and bidirectional it's around 17% slower than the previous weekly release.

[Lord Crc]

Which platform are you on?

[xray]

Congratulations and many thanks to xray for the new splash screen.

It was an honor for me

[Carbonflux]

The honor is ours also xray, you really are a great artist.

This release is the best so far, I did a fresh build right after the thread was started and continued my current render, everything is working very well.

I want to say thanks to everyone involved, thanks for supporting art which imo is the measure of any civilization.

Very Best Regards

[tokiop]

Congratulations and thanks to everyone involved ! The community and development of luxrender is a great inspiration..
Like you say Carbonflux, free tools is needed for free people and free society !

[pciccone]

Wow, just woke up and saw that 0.7 is out. Congratulations to everybody for a great release. Lux has become very powerful and quite mature. You should all feel very proud of you have done.
Thank you very much for making such great product possible.